WEATHER HAS TAKEN TOLL ON PRODUCE

Produce brokers in St. Louis say winter and spring growing conditions this year have been the nation's worst in more than 100 years.

Produce wholesalers said Thursday that the combination of winter flooding in Arizona and Southern California and the March blizzard across much of the nation has caused wild price fluctuations at produce markets across the country.

One of the hardest hit crops has been lettuce, with the wholesale price for iceberg head lettuce soaring this month.

Locally, the price of a head of lettuce in Cape Girardeau was at $1.99 last week. Prices for fresh tomatoes and bell peppers also are up significantly because of shortages caused by the weather.

Frank Stinnett, of Stinnett Wholesale Produce of Cape Girardeau, says it's all a matter of supply and demand.

"When the supply is short and the demand is high, the price goes up. That's the way all markets operate," he said.

Stinnett said the average wholesale price of lettuce this time of the year should be around $9 a case.

"During most of April, the price has averaged between $28-$34 a case, and at one time was as high as $35 case. It did drop back to $22 case on Wednesday."

Stinnett said he was uncertain why the price has dropped, whether there's a backup in the supply line or if it's due to consumer resistance at the supermarket.

"It might be a combination of both," he said. "I was selling lettuce for $1.50 a head earlier this week, but I think I can drop back to 99 cents a head by the weekend."

Tim Lambert, produce manager at Food Giant in Cape Girardeau said his lettuce was selling last week for $1.99 head, but has dropped this week to $1.69.

"I've been produce manager for seven years, and I can't remember the last time I saw $2 lettuce," he said. "The quality of the supplies we've been getting is pretty good, although the heads are a little soft."

Despite the price increase, Lambert said he hasn't received too many complaints from customers.

At Del-Farm National, the price of head lettuce this week ranged from 98 cents for better quality heads to 88 cents for smaller, softer heads. In some stores across the country, produce managers have placed signs in the aisles explaining the reason for high lettuce prices and poor quality.

Stinnett said the price of lettuce also has cut into sales to local restaurants by about 50 percent.

"The chain operations, such as the fast food restaurants and steak houses, are continuing to buy in the same quantity, but they're absorbing the price increase," he said. "The individual restaurants and truck stops I service have just cut back on their lettuce purchases until the price drops again."

Stinnett said produce brokers in St. Louis told him weather conditions this past winter and spring in the nation's produce belt from California and Arizona to Texas, Alabama, Florida and Georgia are the worst they've seen in 108 years.

In addition to record flooding in California and Arizona in the winter, the March storm produced hurricane-force winds that swept across Florida, blowing most of the blooms off the tomato plants.

"It's the blooms on the plants that turn into tomatoes. No blooms, no tomatoes," Stinnett said.

This is the second straight year Florida tomato plants have been damaged by bad weather, Stinnett said.

"At this time of the year, a 25-pound lug of tomatoes from Florida should sell wholesale at $9," he said. "On Thursday, it was selling at $25 a lug.

"But last year at this time, it was as high as $40 a lug because of bad weather."

According to Lambert, salad tomatoes that normally retail for 69-79 cents a pound at this time of the year, last week were selling for $1.19 a pound last week.

Stinnett said supplies of bell peppers also are short because of the bad weather. He said the wholesale price of a bushel of bell peppers is $30. It normally sells for $7-$8 a bushel in late April.

Onion lovers might also have noticed a price hike. Stinnett said Texas flooding disrupted the harvest of Texas sweet onions,20creating an extra demand for the popular Vidalia onions coming out of Georgia.

"Because of bad weather in Texas and Georgia, there won't be as many jumbo sweet and Vidalia onions for a while," he added.

Although prices are high and supplies short, produce brokers and wholesalers are optimistic things will improve next month when new shipments of head lettuce from California's Salinas Valley begin heading to the nation's produce markets.

Supplies of tomatoes should begin to increase20by mid-to-late May, as the winter and spring tomato harvest moves out of Florida into southern Georgia.

Some brokers predict a glut of produce in late May will send prices plunging by the end of the month.

For Stinnett and other produce wholesalers, it will be a time of cautious buying.

"When the market drops, you sure don't want to get caught with a large inventory of $35 dollar lettuce or $25 dollar tomatoes setting in the warehouse," he said.